Schönbrunn Palace Tickets: State Apartments, Palace Ticket or Guided Tour?
Updated October 13, 2026 · 5 min read
Most visitors should go inside with a guide and keep the gardens for free afterwards. One of the best-reviewed ways to do that on GetYourGuide is the Skip-the-Line Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Tour: 4.8 stars from 8,090 reviews, and the listing offers a 22-room Highlights Tour or a gardens-only tour. If you would rather walk through alone with an audio guide, buy the palace’s own Palace Ticket for all 40 rooms and book a time slot first.
The options at a glance
Schönbrunn sells its interior in two sizes. Older pages and many listings still call them the Imperial Tour and the Grand Tour; the palace now uses the names State Apartments and Palace Ticket.
| Option | Rooms | Time | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State Apartments (formerly Imperial Tour) | 22 | about 40 minutes | around €30 | a short stop, children, tight schedules |
| Palace Ticket (formerly Grand Tour) | 40 | about 75 minutes | around €40 | the full piano nobile, including the Franz Joseph and Elisabeth apartments |
| Skip-the-Line Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Tour | 22-room Highlights Tour | 1 to 2.5 hours | from €15.59 | first-timers who want the story explained |
| Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Skip-the-Line Tour | see listing | 2 hours | €63 | a longer guided visit with the gardens |
The two palace prices are what the ticket pages and several booking guides quote; they differ by a couple of euros between sources, and they move with the season. Look at the palace’s ticket page on the day you book.
The €15.59 is the starting price of the cheapest option on that listing, which includes the gardens-only tour. It is not the price of the palace tour. Pick the option you actually want on the booking page before you compare it with anything else.
What the 22 rooms leave out
The State Apartments are a compact route through the state rooms. The Palace Ticket adds the rest of the piano nobile, including the apartments of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth. If Sisi is the reason you are here, the shorter route is the wrong one, and the Sisi Museum in the Hofburg is worth the same decision.
Both tickets include an audio guide in several languages, according to the ticket pages, and both are timed. You enter in your slot, and then you walk at your own speed.
Do you need a guide at all?
An audio guide gives you dates and room names. A live guide gives you the family, the intrigue and the reason a room looks the way it does. In a palace of 40 rooms that matters: the rooms are easier to tell apart when someone says who used them.
A guide costs more. The guided tours here run from about €52 to €63, against around €30 to €40 for the palace’s own ticket. What you buy is the explanation, plus skip-the-line entry as the listings sell it.
Check three things on the booking page of any guided tour:
- whether the palace entry is part of the price (the listing for the UNESCO Schönbrunn Palace Guided Tour with Entry says so in its title)
- how many rooms it covers
- the group size
The gardens are free, the extras are not
The park is open to walk through from early morning and costs nothing. Separate tickets cover the paid garden attractions: the maze, the Privy Garden, the Orangery Garden and the Gloriette. If you only want the park, you do not need a ticket at all.
The Panorama Train Tickets cost €9 and cover the grounds with a seat. They suit small children and tired legs. The Skip the Line Schönbrunn Palace & Panoramic Train bundles the train with the state rooms. The listing says a shorter Christmas Express replaces the train in November and December.
When it is not worth it
If you have only one hour, do the State Apartments and spend the rest in the gardens.
If you already have a Belvedere or Hofburg ticket in the same day, the 40-room version is a lot of palace. The Belvedere ticket article covers that museum.
The exclusive ticket after opening hours lasts 40 minutes and costs €42. The listing names the apartments of Franz Joseph and Sisi and the Great Gallery, and it is rated 4.1 stars.
How to book
- Decide how much of the palace you want: 22 rooms or 40.
- Book the time slot first, then the rest of the day around it.
- Plan the gardens for afterwards, since they cost nothing and need no slot.
- Browse the full list under attraction tickets in Vienna or the walking tours if you prefer a guide.
An evening at the palace is a different product: the Mozart and Strauss concerts in the Orangery are compared against the Hofburg in a separate article.
